A spokesperson from the St. Pierre Museum says their Sugar Shack tent at Festival du Voyageur is their biggest fundraiser of the year.

Rolly Gagne says the St. Pierre Museum has been participating in Festival du Voyageur since 1980. He notes they started off small but they now run a full kitchen at the Caisse Financial Sugar Shack tent.

Volunteers set up the Sugar Shack"We look after the kitchen, we look after the taffy on the snow and it is all on behalf of our museum here in St. Pierre and we have got 250 volunteers that help us over a 10 day period. From everywhere, not only St. Pierre, we are talking people from St. Malo, from Steinbach, from Ste. Anne, Lorette and they come in because they know how important it is for our small community here in St. Pierre."

Gagne says they also sell traditional French Canadian food in their tent and the festival provides entertainers. He notes with the thousands of people that come through Festival du Voyageur every year, it is a great way to promote the St. Pierre Museum.

"A lot of people that participate at the festival will come to our Sugaring Off Festival in April and it is the first weekend of April. Because of the culture that we share and the traditional foods, they do flow to our area not only in St. Pierre but all of southeastern Manitoba."

Gagne says the 50th annual Festival du Voyageur kicks of Friday morning with a number of school groups.